Roald Dahl really did write an raunchy adult book called "My Uncle Oswald in 1979." But both the book "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" and the movie adaptation "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" predate the publication of that book.

Hence it's not a dirty joke slipped into a kids' film. It's use in "My Uncle Oswald" is a dirty reference to a fictional fruit name that he created years earlier & and I believed used in at least one other story.

Plus even in-universe it could make sense. People use food items as slang terms for "private parts" all of the time in the real world. Melons, bananas, clams, huevos (the Spanish word for eggs, but in slang terms also means testicles.)

Dahl wrote as bunch of adult stories (which are far superior to his children's books); My Uncle Oswald is an expansion of his story "Bitch."

But it's not a dirty joke; Charlie and the Chocolate Factory predated My Uncle Oswald by a couple of decades. "Snozzleberries" seems to have been made up for Charlie; at most, Dahl is making a sly reference to the children's book many years later.

Just because one character uses the word 'snozzberry' as a euphemism for a penis doesn't mean that every use of that word is also euphemistic. There's a whole bunch of slang terms for penises that are otherwise perfectly normal words and even foodstuffs: weiner, meat, noodle, frank n' beans, etc..

If you swap in a new word then the quotes become "The meat tastes like meat!" and "I grabbed him by the meat," so yeah, that article is really reaching.

"There's only one way when they get violent," Yasmin said. "I grabbed hold of his snozzberry and hung onto it like grim death and gave it a twist or two to make him hold still."

"Ow."
"Very effective." "I'll bet it is."

"You can lead them around anywhere you want like that."

"I'm sure."

"It's like putting a twitch on a horse."

From Page 141 of Roald Dahl’s “My Uncle Oswald”.

The Cracked humor article can be labelled as unconfirmed (unconfirmable) but possible.

The quote is, as quoted above, in and of itself a real part of the story.

What can NOT be confirmed is Roald Dahl’s intent.

His books are filled with sly humor and nonsense (as this too can be labeled) that might mean something to him or be a part of the whimsy.

It’s completely possible he was making a funny reference to Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory using the term ‘snozzberry’ as a euphemism for penis. As we do in modern day, real-world situations as well.

It is likely it was not intended to mean ‘penis’ in the original story

In a story that is literally about drugging powerful men and sleeping with them in 1979 (Willy Wonka was published in 1964) it can be assumed to be a product of the times. During the 70’s such behavior was not seen as rape and it would be simplistic to retroactively term it so (though of course completely right to term it as morally wrong).

‘Snozz’ is also a commonly used slang term for ‘Nose’ which probably identified it originally as simply being a nasty tasting fruit for the kids to taste in “Willy Wonka”, probably equal to naming it “Snot”berry.

Dahl uses other whimsical ways of describing things, going out of his way to call condoms “Rubbery things” throughout the whole of “My Uncle Oswald”. It isn’t a huge leap to then name male genitalia after a nasty tasting fruit because it made him chuckle, or floored with a self-reference.

It is likely it was not intended to mean ‘penis’ in the original story

It seems from that quote that he did mean it as "penis" or "testicles" in that context, but also that it was already an in-joke of his from some other context that, as you say, we shall no doubt never know. In the various Willy Wonka books, it's still less of a euphemism than the name Willy Wonka is in English English...

No doubt Roald Dahl was sometimes making private jokes, but so is every writer, even childrens' writers.

(eta) Coincidentally, my friends told me off earlier because I'd apparently shouted "penis" too loudly in the pub. I don't say these things out of context, so perhaps I was just talking too loudly in general. I do that sometimes.

(eta) Coincidentally, my friends told me off earlier because I'd apparently shouted "penis" too loudly in the pub. I don't say these things out of context, so perhaps I was just talking too loudly in general. I do that sometimes.